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Comment by thehappypm | Hacker News Reader

One thing this latest heat wave is worrying me about is that climate disasters seem like they will happen no matter what happens with CO2.

Like, the hottest temperatures from Death Valley are from a century ago.

Tornadoes, droughts, heat waves, monsoons, floods, hurricanes -- not to mention earthquakes and volcanic eruptions -- will all continue even if CO2 goes back to pre industrial levels.

Then what?

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The specific hottest temperature reading from Death Valley in 1913 is far from certain. The reality is we aren't sure how accurate that reading really was (turns out, measuring accurately temperature is harder than one might think). We're a lot more certain about recent temperature readings and aside from Death Valley there are far more records broken nowadays than in the past. For example just 2 years ago, Canada's hottest temperature reading was (121.3f) in Lytton BC. Before that, the record was set thousands of miles away. Lytton usually gets hot in the summer, but never that hot.

Interestingly, the list of weather records data shows that the extreme highs are really scattered throughout the last century. It seems probable, though, that these will all fall in the next couple decades.

Africa: 1931

Antarctica: 1982

Asia: Tie, 2023 and 2017

Europe: 2021

North America: 1913

Oceania (incl. Australia): Tie, 1960 and 2022

Oceania (excl. Australia): 1973

South America: 1905

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records

CO2 isn't the only thing that can and does contribute to climate, just one of the possible gasses that can, and currently is contributing.

Sure. But, if the point of de-carbonizing is to stop extreme weather altogether, we're not going to achieve that, ever.

Not stop in this instance but rather not contribute to.

It's also not going to stop meteor strikes, but fortunately no one has ever suggested that was the purpose of decarbonization.

I mean, if stopping extreme weather isn’t the point of decarbonization, what is the point?

Reducing it, ideally to pre-industrial norms. Stopping extreme weather is obviously impossible, and so obviously so that it's bizarre you're even trying to prop it up as a strawman.

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